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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Hillary Clinton Accepts Democratic Nomination; Clinton on Economy: We Must Do Better. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired July 29, 2016 - 04:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[04:31:56] HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: And so, my friends, it is with humility and determination and boundless confidence in America's promise that I accept your nomination for president of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: There it was. History overnight. Hillary Clinton the first woman ever to accept a major party nomination. Katy Perry likes it. She was singing on stage that night.

Did Hillary Clinton do enough if this speech to convince voters on the fence? We shall discuss.

Welcome back to EARLY START, everyone. I'm John Berman.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Christine Romans. It is Friday morning. It's 32 minutes past the hour.

All right, America, what did you think? What a close to four action- packed days in Philadelphia after hearing from current presidents and former presidents, generals, sports stars, musicians, mothers, daughters, even God if you count the voice of Morgan Freeman.

In the end, the only voice that matters was that of Hillary Clinton, making history as the first woman to accept her party's nomination. In the end, it is her speech which will determine whether this was a successful convention. Her speech could determine whether Americans decide they know her well enough after 25 years in the spotlight, and they trust her enough after questions about e-mail and honesty.

But perhaps more than anything, she said enough is enough when it comes to one person in particular -- Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLLIP)

CLINTON: Powerful forces are threatening to pull us apart. Bonds of trust and respect are fraying. We have to decide whether we will all work together so we can all rise together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: All right. CNN's Phil Mattingly was there. He joins us now.

Phil, good morning. There's no one on the stage. There's just the remnants of four days of convention behind you. How did she do?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are officially taking it apart here at the Wells Fargo center.

Look, last night was big in every sense of the world for Hillary Clinton, not just because it was an historic moment, which it clearly was, but she was in the public eye for decades, this was a hugely important speech, one that she's never given before. And as you noted, Christine, there was a large check list that she wanted to accomplish with the speech. Not the least of which attacking Donald Trump, trying to take him apart.

But also, there was a counter-argument, a very deliberate counter- argument to what we heard in Cleveland last week. Hillary Clinton with an uplifting message, a unifying message. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: None of us can raise a family, build a business, heal a community or lift a country totally alone.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

America needs every one of us to lend our energy, our talents, our ambition, to making our nation better and stronger. I believe that with all my heart. A country where the economy works for everyone, not just those at the top.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

[04:35:05] A country where all our children can dream and those dreams are within reach, and, yes, where love trumps hate. That's the country we're fighting for. That's the future we're working toward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Now, guys, in talking to Democrats that were here and that were paying attention over the course of the last 12 hours, sorry, eight hours or so, the reviews have been good. Look, everyone is willing to acknowledge, this is not the flashy speech. She's not President Obama. She's not her husband, President Clinton.

But everybody was happy. It was a kind of a calm, steady listening out of what she would do in office but also how she countered what Donald Trump has been doing up to this point. And that's extremely important.

Obviously, Senator Bernie Sanders giving her congratulations on Twitter last night, saying that they are stronger together. Hillary Clinton getting a nod to Senator Sanders and his supporters, a group that she really needs to coalesce behind her in a big way to win in November. Also, President Obama taking to Twitter, saying not only did he think it was a great speech, but also, very important news, Hillary Clinton will be take over the @POTUS Twitter account if she wins the White House.

But before any of that can happen obviously, we have 102 days left and it is going to be a hard core battle over those 102 days, tens to hundreds of millions of dollars are going to be spent, divisive rhetoric on the campaign trails probably continues. So, plenty to look forward to in that sense, guys. But, for now, both conventions are officially in the books.

BERMAN: All right. Phil, don't go anywhere.

Joining us to discuss the closing night of the Democratic Convention, CNN political analyst Josh Rogin, a columnist for "The Washington Post", and CNN political commentator John Phillips, talk radio host on KABC, and a Donald Trump supporter.

Josh, I want to start with you. It was fascinating to see the speech last night. Hillary doing a number of things on trust, on opening up to the American people. But I think most of the speech, if you had to break it down, was devoted to differentiating herself to Donald Trump and differentiating the feeling he left behind after Cleveland to one that she was trying to portray of hope and optimism.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right.

BERMAN: She said it is morning in America compared to midnight in America. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: He wants to divide us from the rest of the world and from each other. He's betting that the perils of today's world will blind us to its unlimited promise. He's taken the Republican Party a long way from morning in America to midnight in America. He wants us to fear the future and fear each other.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Interesting to hear.

ROGIN: Sure. I think in a way, these convention speeches are auditions, OK? People are watching all over the country. Millions of people who have not following the races closely as the four of us, and they want to see, is this someone I'm going to want to listen to for four years and I live with in my living room and on my television for four years?

And what Hillary Clinton is trying to do here, she's trying to say to people, OK, for the next four years, Donald Trump may be entertaining, he can be funny, he can even be charming at times, but he's going to be telling you to be scared and to be afraid and the sky is falling and doom and gloom. You have to deal with that for four years, whether you believe it or not. Is that really how you want to live your life? You want to live your

life in fear. I'm giving you an alternative. That's what she's going for there.

PHILLIPS: What was interesting to me was the contrast between with her convention speech and Bill Clinton's back in 1992. And the camera kept cutting between her and Bill who is sitting in the box watching.

In 1992, he couldn't vilify his opponents. He was running against a war hero, George H.W. Bush. Same in 1996. He ran as a new Democrat, with triangulation, trying to get moderates, people in the middle. She vilified her opponent and pushed the party far to the left. Two very different approaches.

ROMANS: Phil Mattingly, I want to get your thoughts on the theme song of the next 102 days, you know, the temperamentally unfit to be president. Hillary Clinton in particular talked about Donald Trump's Twitter habits last night, and that got a lot of response from the crowd. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: So, just ask yourself, you really think Donald Trump has the temperament to be commander in chief? Donald Trump can't even handle the rough and tumble of a presidential campaign. He loses his cool at the slightest provocation. When he has gotten a tough question from a reporter, when he is challenged in a debate, when he sees a protester at a rally.

[04:40:00] Imagine if you dare, imagine, imagine him in the Oval Office facing a real crisis. A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: You know, Phil, she is trying to turn one of Donald Trump's biggest strengths against him, and that his ability to have a message and to use social media and the media and to control the news cycle. She is trying to cast that as a negative.

MATTINGLY: Yes, no question about it. Not so subtle in that effort as well.

Look, this is the game for the Clinton campaign. If there was anything else, we knew this going into Philadelphia. If there is anything else we learned over the last four days, their entire goal, their entire strategy is to paint Donald Trump as completely temperamentally ineligible for the Oval Office. They're not trying to paint him as a Republican. They're not trying to paint him as kind of the traditional GOPer. They're trying to put him on an island and say no matter what your party, no matter what your ideological bent, you can't vote for him.

And that's exactly what she was doing last night. You heard it from military officials. You heard it from congressional officials. You heard it from people across the spectrum during this campaign. And it's not a gamble of a sense you bought into this. But the reality is, they are facing an anti-establishment electorate that is increasingly uneasy and that wants change. Hillary Clinton is not that. And so, they have to make it a referendum on Donald Trump. It is an open question whether or not that takes, but that's clearly what they're going for.

BERMAN: In fact, she admitted in many ways that she's not changed in the traditional sense. She stood up and said many times people are introducing themselves to the nation. That's not me. I've been around for a long, long time.

And when I heard her say that, Josh, I wonder if that was a little bit of a risk.

ROGIN: It is, it is. First of all, she -- you can't reintroduce Hillary Clinton. It's never going to happen. Everybody knows who she is. She had to acknowledge that.

But what she is saying is, are we really going to do this? Are we really going to elect Donald Trump president? By taking that strategy, what she's doing is she is letting go of the Trump supporters. She's not reaching out to them, OK?

She is saying if you have been watching this campaign and listening to what Donald Trump is saying, if you're following what he's been doing, and you still want him -- well, then there's no help for you. We can't bring you along. You should see it by now.

And she sort of putting her in a position of the grandmother. You really shouldn't do that. The risk there is that she's telling people what they should think and feel about what they are seeing on their TV. She's betting that more people will agree with her --

ROMANS: I don't want to give up the conventions. We have been living and breathing it for the last couple weeks. What happens next here? For your campaign and the Clinton? Is it is a pause and then, boom, attack?

PHILLIPS: Oh, no. We're going straight to the gutter. We're going straight to the gutter. They are going great to the gutter.

All of us at CNN, we are following them straight to the gutter with the cameras, watching everything that's playing. This is going to be one of the most negative campaigns in the history of the presidency. Both sides are going in that direction. Both sides have high negatives.

If you look at the poll numbers, many of them have both candidates in the low 40s. Which means you have a lot of people undecided that have extremely negative attitudes about both candidates. Those are the people are going to decide the election.

BERMAN: Live from the gutter.

(LAUGHTER) ROMANS: The question is, is Phil Mattingly ever get to go home to get new laundry?

How long you've been on the road? You've been on the road for days.

MATTINGLY: We are running three weeks. Berman says I can't come home. He controls my schedule behind the scenes. I'm not really sure why that is. Christine, if you can help me out, I would really, really appreciate it.

ROMANS: He's threatened by you. He tries to keep far away. All right. Thanks, Phil.

All right. Hillary Clinton is making her pitch on the economy -- tough task of defending the president, but admits Democrats are not doing enough. On your money, that's next.

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[04:48:17] ROMANS: All right. The day after the last night of the Democratic National Convention and Hillary Clinton now the Democratic nominee for president, accepting the baton from President Obama. She has a fine line to walk when it comes to the Obama economy. Celebrate the economic turn around, but knowledge not everyone feels it. She's got to layout a strategy to fix its weaknesses.

Here's what that looks like. First, the strength. Stocks are up 178 percent since Obama took office in 2009. Record highs for stocks right now, 9.8 million net new jobs in the recovery. Unemployment is 4.9 percent, cut in half from the peak at 10 percent.

Home values are above the pre-crash highs. They have more than recovered. The average price nationwide for a home, $231,000.

Here are the weaknesses, though. The average U.S. household makes about 54 grand a year, almost exactly the same amount they were making twenty years ago adjusted for inflation. Debt, a big problem, 70 percent of college students graduate with some debt. The government debt has ballooned from $10 trillion to $19 trillion during the Obama administration.

And, finally, the Obama economy has averaged about 2 percent growth per year. It was 3 percent growth before the recession. We get a first look at second quarter GDP later this morning.

But I want to play something that Hillary Clinton said, guys, last night. Let's talk to the panel about it. How she admits the economy is not working for everyone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: We're still facing deep seed problems that developed long before the recession and stayed with us through the recovery. I've gone around the country talking to working families and I've heard from many who feel like the economy sure isn't working for them. Some of you are frustrated, even furious. [04:50:04] And you know what? You're right. It's not yet working the

way it should. Americans are willing to work and work hard. But right now, a lot of people feel there is less and less respect for the work they do, and less respect for them, period.

Democrats, we are the party of working people. But we haven't done a good enough job showing we get what you're going through and we're going to do something to help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: And that, John Phillips, is such an interesting thing about the election. The billionaire casino and real estate mogul who is the one who connects with the lunch bucket voter that used to be the ear of the Democrats.

PHILLIPS: Right. This is tricky for her, because she is talking about people, many of whom live in coal country, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, some of those swing states that will decide the election. She talks about those people left behind. Well, then, the next question is, left behind by who?

Your party has been in charge for eight years. You have control over the economy or at least the president and, you know, your bureaucrats and the Department of Treasury. What went wrong? How are you the change agent and the person who's running as a third term of the Obama administration? It's a very tight rope.

ROMANS: The gas prices tanked. Natural gas prices tanked, which made coal less attractive. There are a lot of other reasons there, too, but --

BERMAN: John is right, though. I mean, it is a conundrum to try to have everything all at the same time. You want to appeal to your base but you also have to be careful because Donald Trump is speaking in language that they understand right now.

So, what do you do about it? You attack Donald Trump, right? You go after Donald Trump and say, no, no, no. He is not the businessman you think he is. He doesn't believe in the American worker. He makes all this stuff overseas.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: The sales pitch he is making to be president. Put your faith in him and you'll win big. That is the same sales pitch he made to the businesses and Trump walked away and left working people holding the bag.

He also talks a big game about putting America first. Well, please explain what part of America first leads him to make Trump ties in China, not Colorado. Trump suits in Mexico, not Michigan. Trump furniture in Turkey, not Ohio. Trump picture frames in India. Not Wisconsin. Donald Trump says he wants to make America great again -- well, he could start by actually making things in America again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Josh Rogin, what is Hillary Clinton appealing to the Wisconsin picture frame lobby?

ROGIN: Right, right, because she knows that in a presidential election season, trade is the thing that matters. She knows overwhelmingly, according to the polls, people feel globalization and expansion of world trade has not produced results that were promised. Now, that's a problem for her because she is a proponent of free trade. She has been for 40 years. She led the drive for TPP, but she was for it because she was against it, right?

So, there's a good reason why Donald Trump is polling better on the economy, because Hillary Clinton has a credibility issue here. But if you looked at the Trump statement after the speech by Steven Miller, Trump's policy chief, he said, Clinton had a globalist agenda, right?

What the Clinton team has failed to do is failed to make the case for that globalistic agenda. That case is pretty simple. The world is increasingly interconnected. It can't be stopped. Trade is inevitable.

ROMANS: And until now, both parties have had that world view. I mean, both parties for years in different administrations have sort of pursued this agenda. It is now suddenly where working class voters, we don't like this. Suddenly, they are rethinking this.

PHILLIPS: And that was one of the bones that she threw to the Bernie people. She came down with very harsh language against TPP. One of the trade deals that she supported in a former life.

And then Terry McAuliffe came out and said, oh, don't worry about that. As soon as she gets elected, she's going to flip. So, you know, nothing to worry about here.

Well, that doesn't make her an honest broker on either side.

BERMAN: We have merely 20 seconds left, 10 seconds left. Predict convention, yes or not, if so, by how much?

ROGIN: There will be a bounce. It will not be as big as the Trump bounce and settle out.

PHILLIPS: Six points or eight points.

BERMAN: Six or eight, you can't walk there?

PHILLIPS: Seven.

ROMANS: I'm going to miss you guys this weekend. I feel like we have spent the last two weeks together, nonstop.

PHILLIPS: At a bar.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: Josh Rogin and John Phillips, we can't thank you enough. Thank you so much. You guys are very good sport.

Hillary Clinton's big moment. How about that speech? Did it do enough? We have new analysis on "NEW DAY", next.

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(AUDIENCE CHANTING)

[04:59:12] HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I accept your nomination for president of the United States.

CHELSEA CLINTON, DAUGHTER OF HILLARY CLINTON: My mother will make us proud as our next president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the moment!

HILLARY CLINTON: A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.

KHIZR KHAN, FATHER OF DECEASED MUSLIM U.S. SOLDIER: Donald Trump, have you even read the United States Constitution?

HILLARY CLINTON: Americans don't say "I alone can fix it". We say we'll fix it together.

(AUDIENCE CHANTING)

HILLARY CLINTON: When there are no ceilings, the sky's the limit.

ANNOUNCER: This is "NEW DAY" with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome viewers in the U.S. and around the world. It is Friday, July 29th. And this is "NEW DAY."